Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Changing Gears



Photo: A golden sneaker. Found hanging around at Sunset & Hyperion.

I've been a relaxing a little lately, with one ongoing show and the next show not until September (more on that later....) I've been stretching canvases and hope to start sketching my next large piece. Hopefully I'll be in the full swing of painting by the end of next week. But we'll see. I've not been terribly disciplined lately with my art.

Instead I've been focusing on perfecting bicycle commuting. It takes time to switch from cars to bikes, and it's a gradual learning process. Right now I'm obsessed with it. I don't think I'll go completely car free, but having a car (and car payment, insurance, gas) is getting increasingly silly. It's starting to irk me, maybe I'll have to do something as the biking becomes more natural. I'm down to 1 tank of gas a month now. Which actually isn't that special of an accomplishment since I only went through 2 tanks a month before I started biking. But 50% is good. I'm biking to work 3 days a week now. Eventually I'll work up to 5. I'm still getting used to the exercise, and my commute time is doubled by biking. I get pretty exhausted but I assume that will go away over time (I hope.) When I bike to work, it's 10 miles round trip, plus a bit on the subway. Maybe someday I'll bike the whole way, which would make it 16-20 miles round trip depending on the route. The commute is becoming a routine now. So on top of that I'm picking destinations and trying to get there without a car: Echo park, Hollywood & Highland, Downtown, North Hollywood, Burbank. On my bike I get all my groceries, pick up dry cleaning, go to the hardware store, Target, Arclight, go out to clubs in Hollywood (no more $10 parking!). It's awesome.